No one claims you need to be in SV or raise VC to bootstrap your way to make a living (or even be wildly rich). It's a lot harder to create a company with an enormous impact that scales quickly without doing so, however. And this is coming from the founder of a VC-backed company not in the Valley.

It's all about what you're aiming for. I have to make a living, but I want to change the world. To do that my company would have to scale more quickly than revenue would allow, so I must raise VC.